white flight

Dear Sarah Palin,

You scare me too.

Sincerely,
an ABC

let them eat cake

Dark Chocolate Molten Lava Cakes

Ingredients:

• 5 - 6 ounces dark chocolate
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup flour
• Optional: Whipped or ice cream

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease four 4-ounce custard cups. In double boiler, melt chocolate and butter. Stir in sugar. In a small bowl, lighly beat eggs. Add some chocolate mixture to eggs to temper eggs. Carefully, stir egg mixture into chocolate mixture. Add flour and combine completely. Add batter to custard cups. Place on baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Centers should be soft but sides should be done. Invert cups on individual serving plates. Remove cups after 2 minutes. Serve warm with whipped or ice cream.

And for those of you who don't feel like cooking, in honor of Obama turning 48, DC has lots of free food to celebrate:

Domino's Pizza will be giving away its new chocolate lava crunch cake from 11-9, or while supplies last. All we had to do to get one was sign a birthday card. The cakes are intensely sweet but overall surprisingly decent. The outer cake "shell" is almost entirely powdered sugar, but the crunch provides a nice contrast to the gooey middle. It'd be perfect with ice cream or a tall glass of milk (and maybe more than a few pretzels, since the sugar gets a little overwhelming after a while).

Meanwhile, Z-burger is giving away coupons for 48 free burgers and 48 free milkshakes to their first 48 customers. Additionally, there will be free burgers and birthday cake from 11-2 and a reveiling of the new "Obama burger."

Happy birthday, Mr. President.

sugar and spice and everything nice

For those of you in the DC area: Tangysweet (which tastes exactly like Pinkberry) is now opening up another Red Velvet Cupcakery at their Dupont location, and they're giving out free cupcakes today starting at noon.

For those of you who drink Bud Light: apparently, so does Obama.

And in honor of it being exactly one week (7 days! 168 hours! 10080 minutes!) until my 21st birthday: here are 17 of the worst shots ever created. Scroll down to see my personal favorite from this summer: the Four Horsemen (Jim, Jack, Johnny, and Jose).

mission accomplished

YESTERDAY I SAW OBAMA!
At the wreath laying ceremony in Arlington.

yes we can

Since I've last updated this blog, I've been to Cesky Krumlov (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), London, Krakow, Bari, Rome, the Vatican, Florence, Pisa, and Venice. But watching the crowds cheer in Chicago last night was the first time I was really homesick for America.

It really happened:
PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA!

I absolutely cannot believe it. We spent the entire night at a Sports Bar that was hosting an American viewing party, shouting and cheering every time a CNN projection popped up on screen. Around 4:45 in the morning, the place was closing down, Dom, Casey and I were crashing, and they still hadn't called it. We booked it in the cold to the nearest night tram, and then all of a sudden Dom got a text from his dad back in CA telling us that Fox News had called it. Then there was another saying CNN had called it. It was all over.

We were literally screaming on the tram, hugging ecstatic fellow Americans heading home from watching TV in the bars, fist pumping and skipping down the street. We got back to our dorm and ran down to the basement to watch CNN, getting there just in time to see John McCain give his concession speech. I crawled into bed at 6 am -- or midnight EST, depending on how you look at it. I didn't get to see Obama give his victory speech, since my head was throbbing from lack of sleep and dried out contacts, but it's all good because I just YouTubed it. Who watches TV on TV anymore anyway? (...5 points if you get the reference.)

it's official

OBAMA 2008!

Confession: I'm actually really excited to follow the election while abroad and see how it is covered by foreign media, especially by a country that used to be Communist.